Burnham-On-Sea Hospital receives high praise in patient survey

Burnham-On-Sea’s War Memorial Hospital has been given a big thumbs up from patients in an annual survey.

Somerset’s 13 community hospitals and nine mental health wards have been praised for their food, cleanliness, privacy and dignity, general maintenance and décor.

This includes Burnham-On-Sea War Memorial Hospital, where cleanliness has achieved a perfect score. The full scores are shown below.

These checks – called PLACE (Patient Led Assessment of the Care Environment) assessments – are conducted each year and for the first time this year also include a judgement on how dementia-friendly the wards are for patients.

This year, Somerset Partnership, the NHS trust which runs Somerset’s community hospitals and mental health wards, was above the national average on each of the five categories judged by patients.

Edward Colgan, Trust Chief Executive of Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust welcomed the results and told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “Good environments matter. Every NHS patient should be cared for with compassion and dignity in a clean, safe environment. Where standards fall short, patients should be able to draw it to the attention of the Trust and hold the service to account.”

.HOW BURNHAM HOSPITAL COMPARES TO OTHERS IN SOMERSET AND UK:

He continued: “That is why we conduct PLACE assessments each year, to give patients and their representatives a vote on how our hospital and ward environments rate and whether they need improvement.”

“I am very proud of our results this year. They demonstrate the hard work our hospital cleaners, kitchen staff, estates managers and community and mental health ward staff do to make the ward the very best place possible for patients. It means that they get the very best chance of responding to treatment and making a speedy recovery.”

“I am especially proud of the excellent results we have achieved on dementia friendly scores. We have invested in significant refurbishment of our community and mental health wards to make them safe and comfortable for our patients with dementia and I am pleased this work is being received well.”

David Dodds, Trust Facilities Manager, explained Burnham-on-Sea War Memorial Hospital’s score on food. He told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “While the rating was slightly below the national average it was still a positive rating and was for the same food served in our other hospitals and prepared using a standard procedure. However, we will keep this under review so we can monitor any change in standards and quality.”

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